Italy's Bright
Young Cannibals

By

Frederika Randall

Updated Feb. 28, 1997 12:01 a.m. ET

Rome

Once upon a time it was sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. Now it's pulp fiction Italian-style. A new generation of novelists who borrow from Quentin Tarantino, splatter comics and "Twin Peaks" provincial Gothic are carving out a publishing niche of unexpected success here. They are young, hip to youth culture in Los Angeles, New York and London, and irreverent about the earnest social values that moved an older generation...